BeforeUltimate Teambecame the uber-profitable behemoth it is today, Career Mode used to be the bread and butter of FIFA games. You would build your dream team on the transfer market, trading virtual currency and pixel players rather than spending real cash on another loot box with a 0.01 percent chance of getting an Icon.
More recently, Career Mode players (there are dozens of us!) often felt forgotten, as gameplay changes and additional content seemed to focus on FUT. Ultimate Team is getting plenty of changes inEA FC 26, but Career Mode has some important updates, too. Along with theAuthentic gameplay modethat caters to players who want a realistic football experience on the virtual pitch, developers Pete O’Donnell and Andreas Wilsdorf explain how the addition of manager transfers and live challenges will create the most lifelike iteration of Career Mode to date.
Messing With Managers
“The community has been asking for years for this, for managers to switch teams,” explains Wilsdorf, who is a line producer at EA’s Bucharest office, where most of Career Mode is developed. “It took a bit of work, a bit of talking to our licensing partners to make it possible, but it’s something we wanted in the game for a long time because it is authentic, and Career Mode is kind of the most authentic mode we have in the game.”
That word – authentic – keeps coming up in my conversations with developers at EA. The gameplay is authentic, the tactics are authentic, the carousel of managers moving clubs is authentic now, too. Managers will retire, can be fired, and will be judged based on their performances in your game’s alternate universe.
For players who simulate seasons deep into the future, this is a vital piece of worldbuilding. For everyone else, it adds a new layer of tactical planning – how do you change your system if you’re facing a caretaker manager, for instance, or if Pep Guardiola has brought his tiki taka philosophy to Paris Saint-Germain?
With such a focus on authenticity, I felt implored to ask whether the number 20 jersey would be retired at Liverpool, as the real-life club has done following the death of striker Diogo Jota. Wilsdorf says that the developers are keen to honour Jota, who was a keen EA FC player who competed in esports tournaments and incorporated the game into his goal celebrations, but will only do so after consultations with his family and Liverpool FC.
“We’re in communications with [Jota’s] family and looking into it,” he says. “We will talk with the family and then make a decision on if there will be representation and how he will be represented.”
Iconic Iteration
There’s one glaring contradiction to this authentic ethos. EA FC 26 is adding Icons to Career Mode.
“I square it off as authentic fantasy,” explains game design director O’Donnell, likening it to the same fantasy as signing Jude Bellingham for his beloved Aston Villa. “Yes, it is fantasy, but we’re placing it into this real world.”
Wilsdorf would add Jay-Jay Okocha to the modern Frankfurt team.
I know I’ll be lifting the Premier League withSteven Gerrard captaining my Liverpool squadand, let’s face it, even at 45 that feels more realistic than my mission to lift the Champions League with Tranmere Rovers. Career Mode presents an authentic world for you to tell sandbox stories within, stories that would make your schoolyard daydreams seem tame by comparison.
Speaking of self-imposed challenges, Career Mode is also getting a live-service element in FC 26. Like signing Icons, it’s completely optional, but Manager Live will offer numerous challenges across the season, from the simple (reach top of the league at Christmas) to the more nigh impossible (the developers reference PSV’s impressive Eredivisie comeback last season, and say that they could replicate something akin to that as a challenge to mimic real events).
O’Donnell says that the team wants to bring “a variety of stories” to the mode, to encourage players away from their comfort teams to experience more of the world of football.
Most of all, Wilsdorf says, the team “want[s] to show that Career Mode is alive.” With the additions of Icons and live events, Career Mode is certainly coming into line with other EA FC game modes. Its brand of authentic gameplay and managerial movements will set it apart from FUT or Rush, but EA’s vision of a game that perpetually evolves over its year-long lifespan has finally come for its single-player mode.
